Daily Circulation: 45,916
Sunday Circulation: 53,629


List the major steps you have taken in the last four years to increase readership. Please organize your response under four headings: content, brand, service, culture.

Content
Weekly Outdoors section, geared to young readers

Redesigned weekly go/do section for younger look

Launched new weekly Digest mailed to non-subscribers revamped weekly jobs/career section added new style and health pages to Lifestyles

Launched new monthly health magazine

Launched Web site; plus health-oriented Web site and running Web site

Update home page at 2 p.m. daily with youth-oriented centerpiece

Brand
Solidified our name, adding uticaod.com (core Web site) to logo on all materials

Commissioned cartoonist to create youth-oriented look for series of ads, with print, outdoor and broadcast adaptations

Promoted variety of content offerings different days of the week

Service
Dramatically improved home delivery service; went from average of more than 75 down routes/day to 5 or fewer;

Launched advertising/reproduction quality initiative, tracking credits issued for problems

Staff telephone training

Improved handling of electronic ads

Introduced several new subscription payment options: EZ Pay, equal monthly billing, PIA incentives

Made vacation stops easier - donated to NIE

Armed sales reps with cell phones and laptops

Expanded e-mail to all staffers with customer contact

Introduced digital photography

Culture
Identified our newspaper's core values

Got employees involved in learning/understanding core values through building-wide contest

Revitalized annual planning process by expanding to include as many as 75 of our employees on various "planning teams" with close interaction with top directors



What is the most innovative, successful or noteworthy thing you have done on readership that you think other papers might learn from or want to emulate?
Weekly outdoors section called GO! It manages to capture young readers without alienating older readers. Besides providing detailed how/where/how much information on outdoor activities (cross country skiing, kayaking, hiking, nature walks), it also recaps entertainment and dining options for the weekend.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
After years of declines, our Daily circulation volumes are up!



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
We've learned to be more open to what our market is saying; to take ourselves less seriously, and to have more fun.



What would you like to do on readership that you have not been able to do and why haven't you been able to do it?
We would like to expand our GO! section, improve hard-news coverage of our suburbs and improve our youth-oriented coverage. Our already limited staff has been further cut due to economic conditions, and we can only do so much with the staff on hand. Similarly, we lack the newshole to do more - we had to reassign newshole from other coverage to create the GO! section.

Getting Traction on Readership

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